


Of Electronics, Books, Snowfall, Rubicund and Starlight [i.e. Louis and Lestat figure out sex the long way]

by orphan_account



Series: The Various Scattered Journals of L.L. [3]
Category: Vampire Chronicles - All Media Types, Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: But yes we will get to the slashy bits, I'm trying to keep characterization respectfully canon, Ignores Blood Communion, Louis hating technology, M/M, More of Lestat talking, Pretty flagrant use of speculation, Violence tag added because we'll get into blood sharing, and talking and talking, once Lestat stops talking, very much inspired but will take a different possibly combined avenue of approach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-27 15:30:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20048335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Immortality and sex don't mix; or at least, that's how everyone says it should be.Lestat and Louis are quite firmly entrenched in this belief; until Louis throws out the television.





	1. Blue and Grey, Eugene O'Neill, Artistic Distraction, and the Inevitable

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:**   
_ Before you read, the first thing I wanted to point out is that the voice of this isn't up to my usual expectations. I am also aware that this is, again, quite long. I will credit my inspiration(s) for this, because there are more than one. The first one I will mention is, by my knowledge, not accessible anymore; but Mended Path was practically a holy L/L Bible to me. The second one is Gulfport: A British Petroleum Fanfic, which I'm sure many of you are familiar with. And, of course, we have the canon series, which despite having some qualms with some of the more recent books, I absolutely cannot disregard. I do love it, even if there are parts I necessarily do not love. So, please, if you have not read Gulfport, I highly recommend that you do. It's unfinished, but it's beautiful as it is._
> 
> I own, earn, and claim absolutely nothing of this fic or the characters herein.

‘Books, so I have found, are quite powerful tools.’

‘You look at one, and you wouldn’t think that you could possibly do so many wonderful and terrible things with a bit of bound leather and some dusty scraps of paper; but Louis would disagree with you hardily. He would disagree in a manner indicative of great dramatic passion and would possibly read the counterargument to your logic right in front of you just to prove a point.’

‘You see, to Louis, books are cornerstones of just about everything. It is my personal belief that you could tell him that books were and are the foundation of time and space itself and he would possibly swoon with academic ecstacy. Nothing would make him happier than to find himself part of some careening, erudite monologue in which the cards fall due to some charismatic dictator of a higher belletristic power. Before there was television or the radio, there were books, and in books are a multitude of escapist fantasies that my love pursues with a kind of voracious hunger. It doesn’t matter if the text is academic; he can still escape. Information is bread and butter to my Louis and there have been times where I have absolutely hated him for it.’

‘In Rue Royal he escaped to books so much I wondered if possibly he had an illness. It does happen, as we all know. Vampires can be made wrongly, or in error, as with Nicki. It’s impossible to describe the fear of that-as the immortal who has done the making-; that fear of an irreversible flaw that makes one’s fledgling more susceptible to the ravages of eternity. I blamed him for it, I blamed _myself_ for it but I raged at him because surely, surely he wasn’t trying hard enough to overcome it. Surely he was being bookish just to rankle me, though of course I did most of the rankling just to get him to look my way, even if he was looking with an expression of disgust.’

‘I am not overfond of literature.’

‘You greatly mistake me if you think that in saying this, I am incapable of enjoying literature at all. I do love a good bit of philosophy, a bit of intrigue, mystery and suspense. I’ll even dabble in fantasy if I’m feeling particularly intrepid, but I’ve no great love of sitting about all night just for the sake of turning a page. I just can’t do it, and I rather blame the way I was raised...or the way others failed to raise me. Sitting for hours at a time...the mere idea is abhorrent.’

‘You have also misheard if you assume that I was raised as a total vagabond; I wasn’t. Mayhap I acted the part, and mayhap it was some fault-or greatly the fault-of poor parentage. But I was the son of the Marquis so I did have some education regarding the niceties of being a gentleman. It was a good thing, back then, to have some poshness about you and so I acted the part when it suited me. Education, however, was not of greatest priority, especially as the youngest son. And when you’ve no money to spend on lavish parties and no rich guests to entertain, such things go to the wayside.’

‘Louis, however, was raised on politeness, on good manners and strong family values. He was taught to cherish that which he was taught, and so he did and does. It is, if I must be so coarse, much like the way we value money. Which, in my case, would be not at all, and in his case, with a great and terrible carefulness that extends down to the painstaking markings in his ledgers. I was never taught to value material things, never taught to care for others because of the cruelty in which I was raised. And, you must understand, that I do love Louis for his carefulness. We do, in effect balance each other; me with my whimsical dismissiveness of all that lies under Heaven-and, dare I say it, Heaven itself-and him with his steadfast consideration of all things.’

‘That does not, of course, change that I thoroughly dislike his penchant for eating books.’

‘And he does eat them; _devours_ them really with his vampire eyes. If books were food I should never have thought him pretty due to the certainty of his impending rotundness. He loves them in a way a human can love the sweet, inveigling depths of a woman’s purse, and not the kind that she keeps at her frock. I have, in moments of pure hysteria, wondered if Louis loves books more than me. And who could really blame me with the way he pulls them off the shelves with such careful, tender hands...hands with long, slim fingers that stroke their leather spines in a manner with which anything living would arch beneath them in the throes of ecstasy. _Oh_ how I envied his books in times far gone...how I longed sometimes to _magic_ myself into them just to have him touch me as he touched them.’

‘I think you gather, from my extensive ramblings, the point that Louis is married to monologue.’

‘It is why, sometimes, I think that I ended up writing The Vampire Lestat in the first place. Not just because his book was riddled with speculation, inadequacies, and the occasional blatant lie, but because I thought that perhaps it was the only way I could get him to listen to me. Because if I was going to force myself to sit down and crack a book that consisted mostly of him moaning about how terrible I was, then I’d be damned if he didn’t get the whole story in one fell swoop.’

‘I stray, as I usually do, off my aim of writing this in the first place.’

‘I’d mentioned the television in my last journal. Or, really, the evolution of technology and Louis’s prompt disposal of technology in reaction to the discovery of e-books. If I must recount it, my fledgling came to the conclusion that literature presented on a screen was of the Devil. Forthwith, he proceeded to throw out all the electronics, including the television. And I say _’of the Devil’_ because those were the exact words he used, though he never means them in any religious connotation. When something is ‘of the Devil’ to Louis, it simply means that he hates it with every fibre of his being and he doesn’t know how to say so in a way that is less polite.’

‘I came in from hunting-I believe it was near to midwinter, I mention this because it will become important later-and caught him on the backend of chucking the telephones into the trash. And he was in a right state, you must comprehend. When Louis is angry the very air around him becomes a static, electric field of crackling energy. It is, if I may say so, quite delicious. However, it was not so delicious at the current moment because I had actually spent a lot of money on those phones and we did receive calls every now and then from other nocturnal individuals who wanted to know how we were doing. I was, effectively, expecting a call from David that very midnight and so I was actually quite upset to see him doing such a thing and could have very well joined him in his state of maudlin frenzy.’

‘He was wearing nothing but a pair of breeches, and that alone was an indication that something was terribly wrong. Nakedness, even half-nakedness, is practically a mortal sin-and I use that term loosely, I am aware-to Louis. If he should be caught outside without his shoes on I think he just might fall over dead due to his terrible lack of apparel-related decorum. I have long ago gotten over my great grief that I shall never go canoodling with Louis. And so, having caught my lover in a state of monumental undress throwing out the landline...I could only stand and gape rather stupidly.’

'I should note that Louis in a state of mind that garners domestic dismantlement is nothing like me in such a state. He does not-for example-throw things hither and thither and swear in French, _non_. Louis moved with a kind of stiff, ramrod straight bearing of irateness. As if all the world was perhaps a spot under his nose that he could merely brush away. He disposed of the offending items I have mentioned with a delicate but scornful practicality; held them with thumb and forefinger as if they were atrociously sullied and sniffed before doing away with them. The act of it, I confess, was so positively adorable I nearly lost my head. It was everything I could do not to kiss his cheeks and rub myself all over him like a giant, besotted cat.'

‘It took him several minutes to realize that I’d returned, and in that time my indignation at him throwing away our possessions had been replaced with concern because for him to be unobservant is rather an indication that something is very wrong. He continued to ramble from room to room, throwing out whatever offending electrical advice he could find, all the way down to the smoke alarm and I almost said something about that but decided that it was probably better if I didn’t.’

‘Instead, I followed him about the house with an increasing sense of worry that was being increasingly tempered by my curiosity because it was really all rather peculiar and for Louis to be peculiar is fascinating. He noticed me in the process of reaching for the record player, and only then because I really did have to stop him. I’d left my 1965 Frank Wilson _Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) / Sweeter as the Days Go By_ on it and there are only three in existence. One of which is quite rightly mine by shockingly honest means and I intend to keep it that way.’

‘When I took the vinyl off the track he still proceeded to toss the player without the slightest indication of a single shred of remorse. That hurt a little bit, because we’d had it since David and I was really rather fond of it. Memories... sentimental value and all that rubbish. Deciding that my curiosity could wait, I retired momentarily to the lounge to put my musical treasure in its sleeve and back up on the shelf. While I did this, there was a great, shuddering-grinding sound in the living room, and I was forced to finish my task post-haste in order to see what Louis was destroying.''

'He'd taken down the television.'

'I've said this before, but the act of it was rather impressive. It was a very large one, you see; I'd had it custom ordered down to the speakers and to walk into the room to see my love hefting something as tall as he was was both exhilarating and a bit confounding. He did it casually, of course, with all the air of a gentleman dealing with a mangy house cat that had wandered in and gotten itself stuck up on the wall. Nothing was damaged, you must understand that; my Louis was very gentle in his demolition process. I daresay a choreographer could find a new form of the art in _mon ange_ and his pristine dismantlement, _oui_, quite so.'

"They've invented electronic books" he said by way of explanation, if you could really call that an explanation. "I can't bear it Lestat, I knew nothing good would come of technology, it's of the Devil."'

'And then he took the television out the front door and put it on the curb.'

'I can say this with great pride because the minute Louis set it down on the sidewalk there was very nearly a car accident. It was still rather early in the evening, early enough for people to still be out and about anyway, and the sight of a veritable theatre set on the side of the road by a scantily dressed Louis was apparently too much for the local passerby. A very well dressed couple stumbled out of a sedan only to be met head on by a rather frumpily garbed woman with nothing on herself but her person.’

‘While she proceeded to loudly and enthusiastically list the reasons as to why _my_ television set was rightly hers, two men who had been previously walking together amicably squared up to trade blows. Several others were content to do nothing but stare at Louis's behind. The owner of the behind, apparently blind to all of it, walked back into the house and shut the door. He stood there for a moment, in his _breeches_, and then made a satisfied noise before going to the lounge to pick out a book.'

'I laughed.'

'I'm aware that this was a strange response but it was the only thing I could do. I laughed until the blood tears were running down my cheeks and I was bent double; 'till I felt as if the very rafters were shaking with the force of my mirth. Louis ignored me, he's used to such fits of hysteria you see, and tonight was no different. _Sacrebleu_, but you must understand, our lives can become rather terribly dull at times, it was as if the circus had come to town and put on the most wonderful performance right in front of my very eyes. And the people outside were still squabbling or whispering about Louis's apparently ragingly attractive masculinity and I simply couldn't bear it!'

'I laughed until I couldn't anymore and then I managed to get myself into the lounge so I could sit in a chair and snicker. Louis spared me nothing but an unimpressed, green-eyed glance over the top of his book before returning to his preoccupation. It was some time before I could collect myself enough to acknowledge that yes, Louis had thrown out the electronics, and yes, they would cost a great amount to replace but money was of no object or issue. How many times had I flown into a rage and broken thousands of dollars-or pounds, or livres, or euros, or francs-of precious items only to replace them the next night? I'd be a terrible hypocrite to accuse my Louis of negligence when I'd done no better in the past.'

'"We'll go out" I managed finally. "Tomorrow" I added when Louis raised an eyebrow. "We'll go shopping and get new ones _chéri_."'

'He gazed at me steadily for a long moment, in that considerate yet slightly exasperated way of his, before he promptly shut his book and put it on the coffee table between us. Lifting a royal blue sweater-clad arm, my love propped his elbow on the club chair he was seated in and curled his fingers under his chin in a graceful manner.'

'"No" my fledgling said politely. "We won't."

'I spluttered, as much as a vampire can splutter anyway. Because we _needed_ the electronics. Heaven knows, we needed it, as much as I hated to admit it, to keep track of our bank accounts and to take annoying phone calls and to order pizza just for gags every now and then. We needed them to watch television and bicker over which character actually had the best intentions and I needed the gramophone to play my vintage records so I could dance Louis about the room.’

‘“_Mon coeur_” I said carefully. “Surely you jest, you know we need them.”’

‘He made a soft sound in the back of his throat even as he tilted his head.’

‘“And see, that’s just the problem” he replied evenly. “We need them too much. They’ve taken over already, and I just won’t have it anymore.”’

‘I had begun to realize I had a rather larger problem than I’d initially anticipated on my hands. Louis is, as many of you know, dreadfully stubborn. By saying that I do not dismiss the fact that I can be just as stubborn, but my love’s stubbornness comes so rarely and with such great fervor that it’s rather like trying to move a mountain once he’s gotten his mind set to something. To be perfectly truthful, I didn’t know a thing about e-books. And why should I? It’s not like I go out of my way to follow the most recent technological advancements of today. By my memory, when Louis discovered them they were not particularly new. I assume he had a conversation with someone who mentioned them, or he’d been hunting and perhaps his dinner had something similar on their person. _Mon bien-aimé_ is not one to pick the pockets of corpses, however, so I assume it must have been the former. I was in a very bad predicament, because I knew how much Louis loved his books, but I could not for the life of me understand why it was so terrible that said books end up on-line.’

‘“You mention these...e-books” I said slowly, testing the word out on my tongue before letting it roll out. At the utterance of it, Louis seemed to shudder in a manner that was bodily violent. “What’s so bad about them being on the internet? Surely now they will forever be immortalized in digital memory, and you can read whatever book you like, wherever you want! Think of it, if you should get sick of me you can simply take whatever device these e-books are on and disappear into the ether. Why, it’s practically a dream come true.”’

‘It was the wrong thing to say.’

‘Wrong because Louis stood abruptly, declared that he was going to hunt, and then vanished without even a ‘by your leave.’ I didn’t protest, and I didn’t follow him because I doubted he would welcome my presence and I was, at that point, a little bit irritated. It’s rather amazing how much technology can fill the gaps in one’s existence. For a vampire, this is especially true because it’s how we keep up with the outside world despite never seeing it during the day. Sometimes, I don’t know how we did it...way back when when you didn’t have the radio, or when the National Anthem played at midnight and you were left to look at static for the rest of the night. Not to mention all the delightful things you can look at on the internet, but that, as you know, didn’t end so well either.’

‘Louis left, as I said, and he came back close enough to dawn that I was metaphorically chewing my nails over it. Without a word to me, he went straight to his bedroom, and by the time I’d managed to gather enough gumption to follow him he was in the throes of the deathsleep. This is where I would like to say that I retired myself; that I withdrew to my own chambers and pulled down the shades to block the sun and thought nothing more of it. I am, however, as I’ve said before, a rather crazy individual, so I did not do that. _Non_, instead, I strategically broke something valuable on my way to my bedroom, keeping the distance relative to every six feet before lying down and falling into an enraged manner of deathsleep.’

‘Louis didn’t speak to me for three weeks.’

‘You must understand that this is not an uncommon thing, even when we’re getting along well. Unfortunately, it was not the same manner of amicable silence we occasionally fall into over long stretches of time. Louis made it _rather very clear_ that he was angry with me in his silence by not spending any more time than was necessary in the same room with me. Really, he went out of his way to avoid me and this threw me further into my boiling pit of hysterics. Because I cannot stand to be ignored and I cannot stand to be avoided on any premise; it makes me feel insignificant...like the small, shriveled, bothersome thing that I was as a child, clinging to Gabrielle’s skirts and winging for her attention with all the gusto my five year old, grubby miserable self could manage. And I did clean up what I’d broken; I feel as if I should mention that in some pathetic attempt at self defense. As per usual, I rose before my fledgling and disposed of all traces of my enragement but the items were gone and that was enough for my Louis to know what I had done.’

‘...He knows me so well...you see...too well…’

‘And he didn't-and doesn't-care for material items. Such trivial pursuits... collection, admiration, oh he could do it, but we had seen lifetimes of valuable things. No, as with so many times before, it was the principle of the thing...the blatant ire behind the action no matter how much I tried to hide it. It was a regression on my part, I'll admit it. It was petty and childish and too much of a vile memory for him to conscience and so I found myself the unwitting villain in the midst of everything...waiting in the eves for my dark lover to come and christen me with forgiveness.'

‘He didn’t.’

‘Louis didn’t come to me, and the longer he avoided me the more frantic I became. As much as I am sometimes loathe to admit it, I do _need_ Louis in this strange way that desperately seeks his approval and affection. And I used to rail against that part of me, granted; in years gone past I have tried to rip that part from me because to me it was only a sense of subservience...it made me vulnerable, weak to him as I was weak to no others. Even Marius cannot bend me to his will the way that he can, and I believe the truth of that frightened me. It still frightens me a little bit because Louis can destroy me without opening his mouth...he _does_ destroy me...with silence, with absence. For an individual who is so knowledgeable with words...my love does not need words to wound me…’

‘...He wounds me far more with negligence.’

‘If we were within another point in history, this would be when I’d have done something unforgivable. I’d have gone out and found some sorry, raging drunk soul and staggered back home so I could beat out Nocturne 27 on the baby grand in a volume so loud that Louis would be begging me to stop before it was over. I’d have thrown out a favorite collection of memoirs or ranted and raved until my companion told me-in exasperated, clipped, and stressed tones-exactly how he felt before bolting out the door and into the night. We might have bandied words back and forth; brought up the past until we were both fair spitting with the weight of resentment, guilt, rage and terrible grief. I’d have him locked into some corner, shoved myself right up in his face until he either pushed me away or fled himself; sneered into those beautiful green eyes just to know that he felt _something_.’

‘That was how we did things then...you see; we didn’t. We didn’t _do_, we didn’t talk, we just sort of flailed about in a manner most unbecoming and if we didn’t see each other for a few years afterwards then the distance made it twice as sweet. Sometimes we had other companions to find our social solace in, we had rooms full of other vampires with heads and hearts and wholeness that neither of us could be bothered to find in each other. Louis and I…_merde_, we just didn’t know each other, _tu vois?_ And I think that’s a bit pathetic really, certainly when you consider all the years between us. We didn’t...we didn’t connect and I took that as a sign that perhaps we weren’t meant to be when maybe we just wanted each other so much that it scared the pants off of both of us.’

‘We were, however, beyond that at the time...or so I’d like to think.’

‘I deemed that perhaps I ought to do something in the direction of making amends. This occurred early one night when we’d both gotten back from hunting around the same time and went in opposite directions of one another immediately upon reaching the foyer. ‘Making amends’ was easier said than done; because I could give it as good a go as I was able and it still might not be to Louis’s liking. I settled with donning a pair of dark jeans-something just on the edge of formal with a straight leg-and a brocade collared shirt. Blue, of course, I’m not so above vanity that I won’t go with something that sits nicely with my eyes, and a little gold stitching never hurt anyone. Long-sleeved, of course; where we were going-if my plans went correctly-short sleeves weren’t acceptable.’

‘Louis was, as usual, in the study.’

‘He wasn’t dressed for anything really, but he rarely ever is so this didn’t surprise me in the least. No, my love was sitting in his favorite chair next to the fire reading _‘War and Peace’_ for perhaps the two thousandth time and I didn’t take it as a statement against anything because I didn’t want to and I didn’t think that he would appreciate it. He didn’t twitch when I approached, didn’t look up for a moment when I entered the room but his eyes kept going over the same line on the page and I smirked because I knew I had him at least a little bit. If I could distract Louis enough from reading then I had a halfway decent chance of cajoling him into something on a good night. This was, and had not been, a good night so I was fully aware that the stakes were rightly higher than they usually were.’

‘“Let’s go to the Orpheum” I said, pretty as you please. “Long Day’s Journey Into Night is playing, and I’ve got us gallery seats.”’

‘I think I must have surprised him because he put down his book. Really, he lowered his book and stared at me like he was trying to figure out what my ulterior motive was. His eyes took in my state of dress and I caught that brief hint of dark appreciation that was always there when I dressed well whether he wanted to admit it or not. It was a bit of a reach, to be sure; it was certainly a large expenditure. Short notice tickets were expensive and at the Orpheum it was rather like selling a child in order to get in a good square few hours of entertainment. It wasn’t a cheerful choice, the play I mean; not by a long shot. But it was something classic that Louis would like with an edge that I myself liked...and so, you see, I was quite careful with my selection.’

‘“Very well.”’

‘Polite but distant; perfectly Louis...his response I mean. My love is so good at that gentlemanly bearing of frigidity; not enough to cut off the conversation entirely but enough to let you know he’s not rightly pleased with you. On any other night I’d have risen to it; taken him at his distance and perhaps flung it about until we were both left with metaphorical bruises from the argument that would follow. I had deemed a long time ago, however, to be on my best behavior and so I said nothing; merely stood and continued to look at him until he realized that perhaps I was serious about this whole _’making up’_ thing and rose in a single, fluid movement.

“‘I’ll go get dressed.’”

‘I think I murmured something along the lines of assent in response, I can’t very well recall. He passed me and I caught the scent of him...the warm...dark velvet sense that was Louis. Even then, before we figured out the physicality of our relationship, I was desperately attuned to him. We touched often...not necessarily as lovers might touch, but with all the affection of two individuals who had known each other for a very long while and were comfortable in each other’s company. I wanted to touch him then...wanted to thread my fingers through his dark, silky hair and press my cheek against his...wanted to open my mouth against the shell of his ear and scent him like he let me do in rare times. Now, however, I didn’t want to push my luck, and so I remained until he’d disappeared up the stairs.’

‘I know he wore grey.’

‘A little known fact about Louis dressing up; he dresses with statement. Much like politicians make statements with their ties, my fledgling makes statements with his clothes. His shirt wasn’t dissimilar to mine; long-sleeved, collared...though without the brocade. But the grey...the grey was a sure declaration of his neutrality towards the whole thing. He’s prone to dull colors, of course. Even on a regular night it’s rare to find him in anything but black, brown, forest green, grey, or-very rarely-white. He does the decoratives of course, or he did, in Paris; but it was expected back then...to have some flair with your frippery. It was no good to be simply clean-cut; you had to make a statement.’

‘_Non_, the grey was certainly an expression of his uncertainty, of tenuity and perhaps a little bit of hidden grief. I don’t think that was intentional on his part, but it warmed me in that sweet...cold water way that at once left me raw and open and a little bit healed. Because it told me he wanted me, even if he didn’t want me to know it. I’d called a cab and if he brushed off the arm I offered at the door, I didn’t let it hurt me. Very rarely these days did he let me play the part that I had once played so long ago. I knew why, of course; he wanted us to be different…_I_ wanted us to be different but old habits die hard. I knew what he was sacrificing by going out with me, knew what he was putting aside. So rarely did he concede to it I was a little bit shocked, even in my state of gratefulness. Because _’Lestat and Louis going out’_ was so much of memory of _’Lestat drags Louis hither and thither and traumatizes him and bosses him around_. I cannot, and will not begrudge him his reticence of my public company, I have done him wrong too many times to be petty about it.’

‘It was a good production.’

‘Maybe it seems strange for me to skip the whole thing...to gloss over it and move to the next event as if nothing about it was of notice, but I do remember that it was good. Mary was her magnificent, dramatic self...right down to her addiction and the familial impression of shambles was just on the right side of too much...nearly vaudeville really but I like that sort of thing. Not too much of the use of modern stage effects; no smoke and mirrors, just good acting. For the price I paid, it had better have been or I’d have had a word with whoever was in charge.’

‘ We sat in the gallery, and it began with us apart but every now and then...when things on stage began to lull...Louis would move closer. He knew I had chosen well, you see. Knew I had picked something that had no relative correlation with us but was appreciable nonetheless. It was, effectively, a date and I think he was not aware of it until the production was well on its way. And so by the end he was leaning on me; just slightly...just enough for me to know that I’d done well by him, that he was pleased and that he was grateful that I asked nothing else of him.’

‘In years gone past I’d have tried to hunt with him afterwards. Nevermind the fact that I was well fed, hunting had always been a social act for me...the thrill of the kill...the thrill of _sharing_ a kill. I never understood Louis’s reluctance in doing so with me. I wanted to so badly, I simply couldn’t see his side of it. And it’s not necessarily correlated with the brutality of it, merely the act of sharing blood. Now, of course, I feel a bit dreadfully stupid for not seeing the desire for what it was, because I did want to share blood with him, I just didn’t necessarily need a body between us to do it.’

‘You misunderstand if you think I’m saying that I did not understand the intricacies of the passion of blood sharing. I had done so, quite mildly of course, with Akasha and others. I had not, however, done any sort of something that resembled a full blood circle. The act of it takes time...it takes care and it takes effort and I don’t think I’d ever met someone with whom I’d truly wished to do such a thing...and therefore I had no reason to consider it. So I hounded Louis about hunting even if I didn’t know why I was hounding him, and every time he rejected me it felt like he was rejecting the entirety of me but the connotations behind it were skewed up and all wrong.’

‘I like the Orpheum.’

‘For all that theatre has become this tacky, modernized thing of strange delights and little artistry, I do find hope in performances such as the aforementioned. Box seats are a thing of the past, and even if you do have them you risk your view being compromised by giant speakers. The first time Louis discovered that his precious box seat view was being impeded by large, square sound machines he walked out. And I mean he walked _straight out_ of the theatre and vowed never to return. My love was so terribly affronted that he wouldn’t speak of it for weeks and it was only through great wheedling and pleading that I got him to acquiesce to see anything again. You don’t really see it anymore you know, true theatre. It’s all high industry mixed with buckets of money thrown into Julliard, _oui_.’

‘Old theatre had the dusty, pining and vicious edge that I love so much; old lace and vaudeville and maybe a bit of jazz on the side if I was feeling up to it. You can’t smell the velvet in the seats anymore; you could back then. You could smell it and it would stay on your clothes along with the perfume of whatever the ladies thought was en vogue at the time. Powder and rouge and tittering behind fans. Ah, I miss it...sometimes I truly miss it. I got myself a pair of theater glasses once you know; those funny little things that look like small binoculars. I did it just so Louis would roll his eyes and grumble at me because we both knew damn well my vision was just fine. But it was a fashion statement! People used them just to look nice and I do like to look nice, and if it drove my Louis crazy in the process more’s the better.’

‘“Edmund was a tad overdone.”’

‘Louis said this on the way to the house, leaning sleepily on my shoulder in the back of the cab. We had hours yet ‘till dawn but it was one of those nights; one of those gentle, suede-soft nights that puts the languor in your limbs and makes you want to pass the rest of it by a fire. I think there was even snow; quite rare...not since 2004 really...since _’the Big K’_ as some outsiders call it, usually as a herald to their impending demise. We’ll not focus on that now, however. It was snowing, and to see snow through vampire eyes is to see every crystalline flake...every glittering facet of winter wrapped up in pellucid icy perfection. Mesmerizing...enchanting. I wished quite suddenly that we’d brought our coats, the old ones...we so rarely got to wear them anymore. They’re wool you see...too hot for Louisiana, with a beautiful old checkered cross-stitch. You can stick a bit of holly in them and the effect is rather magnificent...if you’re living in the 1940s.’

‘I chuckled.’

‘“Edmund’s got tuberculosis” I muttered into his forehead. “He’s suffering, of course he’s overdone.”’

‘“Oh _oui_” was the sleepy response. “But I’d have liked a little subtlety.” A pause. “It was well done though, you don’t see much of that anymore.”’ His hand threaded through mine...a subtle gesture...something unseen in the dark of the cab. The driver was thinking on what seemed to be four-score cats that he tended to in his little house just off of Michoud and whether they’d be alright with the snow. He didn’t care a whit for what we were doing, only that we got there and got out in a timely manner. “I enjoyed it.” Another wordless moment. “Thank you, Lestat.”

‘I smiled...somewhere soft...somewhere secret in the dark of his hair.’

‘“Of course _chéri_”’

‘We made it home in a manner that was not unbecoming and by the time we’d gotten through the door and out of our formalwear into something more comfortable I was halfway ready to call it a night. It’s exhausting...you see, being so very good. I don’t know why I struggle with it so much, really. I think some part of me desperately needs chaos in order to retain contentment. I think if I were ever to become truly bored I’d do something irreversibly terrible. Did we talk about the Talmasca? Damn them. Of course you know that I’ve had...problems with them in the past. I feel a little bit lackadaisical in saying that we burned everything down because of course we did but you can only go so far with such things before they come back to haunt you. We had several properties in New Orleans seized by the Talmasca despite the fact that we tried to take or destroy as much of ourselves as we could. I think I came back as some sort of defiant statement against them, but I ended up staying and they haven’t bothered us and so I shan’t complain. I’m sure they’re waiting for me to do something ridiculous.’

‘As I said, we returned to the house and ended up in the parlor doing absolutely nothing. Louis surprised me by doing absolutely nothing because he’ll usually sprint for a book. Instead, he joined me on the chesterfield and let me put my head in his lap so he could stroke his fingers through my curls while we watched the flakes drift down outside. It was a gentle sort of silence...very rare for us. I’d kept the fire banked so that we could see the snow and the lights were dimmed just enough that they weren’t a distraction either. I could hear the thump of his heartbeat...the rhythmic melody of blood swirling through his veins...not quite in sync with mine but close. I confess we both nearly drifted off-which was actually rather a dangerous thing to do-and by the time I became aware of the slate-grey that was the herald of a snowy dawn Louis was halfway into the deathsleep and I had to drag him up the stairs and into his room before the sun came for us both.’

‘I suppose that this would be the part where the audience would murmur _’well that was anticlimactic’_.’

‘Ah-ah, but you are not giving us the luxury of _time_. And time, my darlings is all that we have and will have...until the end. I slept in his room that day. Not close, granted, but in the same bed...and near enough to him that I could feel his presence. I don’t know why I did it, really; just that it seemed like the right thing to do, and I was, for once, tired enough that I didn’t care for the sense of separation, didn’t care what he’d think when he woke...if he even woke before I did. And I needn’t have worried, for he didn’t...and I was up and wandering about before he ever knew that I’d been there or not. I didn’t need to feed, but I felt that perhaps I wanted to. I didn’t know why; I’d fed the night before and the Thirst wasn’t heavy on me in the slightest. It was a hunger quite unlike the Thirst...and I’d had it before but I’d always been able to slake it in the kill. It didn’t make sense then...though it had come more and more often now that Louis and I lived with one another. It was a little bit of an echo of Rue Royal...a little bit of that savage need for glut that I couldn’t quite put my finger on but was somehow tied to the vampire slumbering upstairs.’

‘I was lusting for Louis, you see.’

‘And when I say _lust_ I do mean it in a physical way...but not entirely. It’s not the same with vampires, though some concepts of it can be overridden and intermingled when the pair in question are close enough. This is, again, where I shall feel very stupid, because I’d been lusting for Louis for several hundred years but I didn’t _know_ it, I didn’t know what it was, and even if I understood that I’d have liked to drink from him I didn’t understand that I needed to complete the blood circle to gain that feeling of completeness. The whole debacle of the thing is almost virgin in my innate inability to see truth. I was, veritably, in the wind when it came to purpose and of course everything between us was tossed up from the beginning. I made him into my eternal companion and then I failed to properly have him. It’s really rather like marrying someone and then forgetting to have sex.’

‘And of course Louis was melancholy, though he didn’t know why. I dragged him hither and thither and treated him like trash because my vampiric nature was so desperately suppressed by the teachings of Marius and the _lack_ of teaching from Magnus. I didn’t know anything at all about the whole _’gracious Lestat maybe you ought to fuck your fledglings before they go rightly mad’_ topic. It does make me wonder if that was why Gabrielle was and is such a cloistered vampire. Maybe vampires are not meant to turn their mothers into vampires, and perhaps that is why Nicki went so very mad; though I really doubt it. I think I should be grateful that at least David found Armand because I’m sure that Armand knows at this point how to take care of him. And, really, I could just be talking out of my hat with all of this but it does bear mentioning that even in my advanced age I can be rather green about things.’

‘We went to the symphony that night.’

‘I don’t remember what was playing, only that Louis picked it and we sat together and I was so thirsty I thought I might ‘eat’ the whole audience. He seemed happy, however, and that was what I wanted so I refrained from massacring the concertgoers because it would definitely have put him off. We hunted separately afterwards; came back at different times. It surprised me a little bit, that Louis would choose to hunt so soon himself but I was too distracted by my own apparent need to really think on it. We retired as per usual; him with a book and me with the piano until dawn drew too close for comfort. I slept fitfully; bereft of my usual plethora of television shows, record playing, dancing and the occasional phone call.’

‘It downspiraled.’

‘I don’t know how to describe it in any other terms than that. Our ‘dates’ were fine...beautiful really. But there was tension there that was displaced...a sense of resentment and old hurts. Occasionally one or the other of us would bring them up and then we’d squabble fitfully; hissed phrases and bared fangs that were quickly replaced with more nights and more exterior entertainment. I took up painting and hated it and Louis started playing the piano which made me want to murder him in fanciful and increasingly violent ways. I became convinced that it was the lack of technology that was causing the problem...and perhaps it was because it was no longer a distraction from what we truly needed. Armand, of all people, wrote me a rather stern letter telling me to call David, and why wasn’t I picking up the phone and everyone was dreadfully worried and I wrote him back a scathing return informing him that Louis had thrown out all the electronics and that if he wanted to talk to me he might as well write a letter instead of having a two-faced backstabber be his ferryman.’

‘The twenty-second of December.’

‘I remember the date because that was when things came to a head, and there was nothing, at that point, that either of us could do to stop it. It’d built up...over the weeks, the coiling tension...like a knot pulled tight. There was so much strain between us the air felt as if it were solid glass. Flimsy glass, that; but solid. A single move and it would shatter...fall all to pieces and no amount of scrambling would allow us to pick it back up again. We’d come in...yet again, from another night of artistic indulgence. A gallery, I believe...something modern but impressionistic, vaguely enjoyable but not enjoyable because we were up to the teeth with each other...practically alien to one another and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I felt like I was losing him, I felt like I was losing _myself_. He was sitting in that damn club chair...sitting there with a book and I think I sat down on the coffee table-which he hates-and knocked the book out of his hands just to do it. And, damn him, he paused for not even a split second...his eyes flashed; and then he bent...calmly, slowly...picked it up again…_and continued to read_.’

‘And I’d just had it.’

‘“I’m buying a new television” I declared.’

‘Louis looked at me over-top of his book; I don’t even remember what he was reading, as distracted as I was, I really didn’t give a damn.’

‘“No, you’re not” he said calmly, but there was a dark undertone of tension there...a thread of blackness that had me mentally kicking at his refusal. I wanted to bite it, wanted to sink my teeth in, wanted to tear it apart and bring it to ruin just to do it.’

‘“I am” I said, the lightness in my tone deceptively lighthearted. “Louis, it’s my house too, you can’t decide what I do with my money.”’

‘And like the slow roll of a thunderhead...it came. The darkness...that roiling blackness...that terrible rage. With Louis it’s more subtle, as I’ve said before. It’s in his bearing, in his posture...in the manner in which he sits up straight instead of with a kind of casual, gallant grace. His brows draw together just slightly...become a thing furrowed instead of lax on his beautiful face. The book was set down...carefully, of course; not because he really cared about it, but because he knew it would irk me, knew that he could drive me into a froth far faster with his patience than with any sort of answering anger. My fledgling tilted his head, his hair falling to one side in a river of onyx...just over his shoulder. It was a reflexive gesture, something innocent and yet terribly inveigling, something that mocked me and fascinated me and I _hated_ that fascination...hated how he drew me to him without doing or saying anything at all. And me, of course...always predatory; leaning forward on the coffee table like a lion stalking its prey...but Louis...my Louis was no lamb...not anymore.’

‘“It is your house” he said coolly. “But just as it is your right to fill it with all manner of tinny, winsome, noneducational nick-knacks, it is my right to leave if I no longer find it tasteful.”’

‘“You wouldn’t” I snarled. “And I’m bored to death, Louis. I can’t stand it, _you_ can barely stand it, but you won’t admit it.”’

‘“It’s not my fault that you’re not given to...literature” was the too-pointed remark.

‘I stood before I had the time to think about where I was going. Nearly upended the coffee table really, but instead I took to pacing before him, restless...jittery and run ragged with it all. I wanted to break something, I wanted to break _him_. But I couldn’t, not now. He knew too much of me, knew how weak I was to him.

‘“And it’s not my fault that you’ve gone ‘round the bend” I finally snapped. “_Mon dieu_ Louis, you sound like a crazy person, all this rubbish about electronics _’taking over’_. Why don’t you put a rubber hat on your head and call it a night? Why don’t you join the Neo-Puddingnists and run around wailing about how terrible technology is? Start a campaign why don’t you, you’d fit right in!”’

‘For a moment, I thought I might have broken the tension.’

‘I’d misspoke you see, and I knew it. I didn’t think he knew it-he did-but _I did_, and I had...just to see if I could throw him a little bit. And it did, for his lips twitched furiously before he fought himself back down again.’

‘“It’s a tinfoil hat” he said with all the coolness of a weatherman. “And they’re the Neo-Luddites. Don’t act like you don’t know, it’s unbecoming of you.”’

_’Unbecoming of me.’_

‘I threw something-I don’t know what it was-only that it broke in the fire and Louis rose quite abruptly; made as if to leave and in a flash I was up before him...blocking his way to the front door. It was an old move, a childish one; something hulking and intimidating and it didn’t scare him one little bit. We were inches-less than that really-from one another...near enough that I could feel his breath over my cheeks and he could certainly feel mine. And oh I was hungry; quite abruptly, I was so thirsty that I nearly just left him there, in the midst of an argument, to try and slake that desperate need in me. It made me feel completely unhinged, completely off balance and somehow immature and small. He didn’t care, _Louis didn’t care_, I told myself that, quite hysterically as we stood there facing off against one another. He’d leave, like he always did, he’d leave and I wouldn’t see him for years and years and if he was going to do that I was at least going to get a good row out of it before he did. The problem was that I also knew that he was determined not to _let_ me and it made me furious. Seething, really.’

‘It wasn’t the same. Not like our other arguments. He wasn’t apologetic, or polite...he wasn’t anything, really. And I wasn’t shouting or spitting or throwing anything about-save for the initial item-it was just a standoff. That’s it. And the longer we stood there, the longer we remained in silence, the more my anger bled into despair. I didn’t _want_ it to, but it did. And I tried, _tried_, to let it fuel whatever was keeping this going...tried to feed the flames of it all so we didn’t just end on something dull, flat, and lifeless...but I couldn’t. Because we always ended up there...always ended up on the cusp of the End...and we could Begin and Begin and Begin but there was always the End. Like Romeo and Juliet, like Antony and Cleopatra, Napoleon and Josephine...but nobody had to do it for us.’

‘We did it to each other.’

‘Something of my despair must have shown in my face, because Louis moved, he moved to touch me and I doubled back, practically leapt away from him in my desperate defense of my own fragility but he kept coming...kept coming until I was backed into a corner between the study and the foyer.’

‘“Don’t” I said, in a strange, choked voice. I think I was shaking, or we were both shaking, or perhaps only my vision was shaking. Still, he came, and I tried to crowd into the wall further...further still and his fingers were crawling up my sleeve...clutching my wrist...wrapping around my bicep. _”Don’t.”_’

‘“Lestat” he murmured.

‘I don’t know what he saw in my eyes.’

‘Really, I can’t imagine what it was, because I was all bared fangs and snarls and defiance. Everything I usually was in such moments...but without the crashing around and the postulation and the violence. Maybe that was all that it took, I don’t know, really. Because he touched me and he kept touching me, kept invading that space...kept pushing in and I could feel him, could feel every line of him and for some reason it made me reel and the reeling made me frantic. I shoved him-and it was not a gentle thing, mind you-but he didn’t budge. Of course he wouldn’t, he’d had my blood, he’d had all of me and yet it wasn’t enough, it was _never enough_. Because I couldn’t keep up the pretense of goodness, I couldn’t not tear us apart just to do it. And who...in their right mind, would let someone do that to them forever?’

‘“You’re not the only one who’s...overwrought with this” Louis remarked, low and soft against my ear.’

‘“Oh shut up” I gasped, my neck craned heavenward in order not to look at him. “Just shut up and leave me here, like you always do. Run back to your books and your shadows and just leave me to rot like you did, like you do.”’

‘“You don’t want me to do that.” Sorrowful. His tone was sorrowful. I laughed and it was an ugly, guttural thing ripped from the very depths of my being. I was vibrating with the taint of it...with the crushing weight of it all...dragged into oblivion by that which I did not understand and he did not understand. “You don’t, Lestat.”’

‘“But I do” I snickered at the wall trimming. “I do, because the sooner you do, the sooner you’ll come back. And you’ll come back to me, you always do, because we’re wretched, wretched for each oth-’”

‘He silenced me.’

‘Louis has silenced me in many ways, shapes, and forms in the some fair hundreds of years he and I have known each other. He has silenced me with poison, with his _own_ silence. My love has silenced me with fire, with disdain and with refusal. He has silenced me with death, with _his_ death and then his revival. Glances, words, lack of words...egress and entrance...smiles and frowns...little things that matter naught. All these things have left me, at one point, breathless for him. But this time...this time he did not do any of those things. And I didn’t know, at the time, what drove him to it ...only that it sucked the words right out of my mouth and left me speechless. For you see in that moment he cupped my cheek-firmly but not roughly-with one hand, and with the other he gripped my waist. He thumbed my bottom lip...carefully, considerately...in that way that only he can do. Hair...all that beautiful dark hair swept to one side as he tilted his head, as he hesitated but a second….’

‘...And then Louis kissed me.’


	2. Of knowing what you're about, Fucking, Surrender, and Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** Right so we have some careening elements here because vampire sex is complicated. Some warnings: definitely blood sharing. I don't know how much this is sexy as it is romantic.

‘Louis and I had kissed before.’ 

‘I am-if you’ll forgive me-hesitant to make that first...initial touch of our lips a more intimate thing than it really was. We had kissed many times; in greeting...so many years ago when one of us came back from the hunt while the other stayed with Claudia. Or, really, Louis would stay while Claudia and I hunted and greet us at the door. If things were well between us he’d kiss my cheek; not often...and only once. I don’t think he did it for me...not then...I think he did it for her...to show her her ‘parents’ were getting along...to give her a sense of reassurance. It was always a fleeting thing...never particularly affectionate, even if it made me burn for him. _Non_, Louis did not love me then...no more than in that obligatory, desperate way that a fledgling must love their maker...no different from how I loved Magnus in those fleeting hours before his death. Our love was not a deep love then, it was a crazed thing, a frantic thing wrought in finery and a frenetic need to forget.’ 

‘We kissed when he approached me...at the concert. When I’d done the whole rockstar spiel and he came for me before _she_ came for me. There was something there then...something deeper and more meaningful but it wasn’t purient in nature. He looked at me...I looked at him and the fabric of us was both broken and badly mended and I kissed him because I needed to be near to him, because it was difficult to believe that he was real and I hadn’t conjured him up from memory. It’s rather difficult to describe it without adding the element of the physical to it...and maybe it was there...but from my memory it wasn’t. I just _knew_ him, and he was looking at me as he’d never looked at me. You know how it went from there...how magnificently I botched everything up as I am rather cancerously prone to do. I think if I’d went with him then, if I’d listened to him and not gone on stage, I think we’d have done it that night. We were both desperate enough and hungry enough that it hardly mattered even if we didn’t understand the intricacies of it.’ 

‘And then, of course, there was the brief time we lived with David.’ 

‘It is, again, a chore to elucidate the emotions running between us at the time. Louis felt dismissed because of David, and I didn’t know what to do with that. I was impatient with his jealousy even if I understood it, a little bit. And you mistake me if you think I’m saying that he was callous to David, because he wasn’t. He was kind to him in ways that, dare I say it, I was not. He didn’t approve, but he still treated him kindly. Ever has my love been gracious in ways where I have failed to be. And then you had the desert debacle and losing my bloody body and him refusing me immortality and the right state of it all. If I have to go over it again I think I just might go completely mad. When Louis went to the sun he nearly destroyed me, though I never let him know it. The only thing running through my mind...weak as I was from waking...was _how dare you_. And, I know, truly, that such a thing makes me rather the filthiest hypocrite that ever lived but that was the only thing I could think; _how dare you, chéri._’

‘Things get rather atrociously muddled and complicated after that; sometimes we were together, sometimes we weren’t. Here, there, everywhere and Atlantis-and you must understand when I say ‘Atlantis’ I speak of the book, this is how much time has passed since then...the book has been written and published-and I don’t think our kisses were wrought in passion but they were more than camaraderie and more than familial love. I always knew, you see, that I loved Louis. I knew that I loved him in that soul-seeking, frantic sort of way that I would never love anyone else even if I tried to replace him...and I did try...shamefully. I tried and tried but I never could. I think perhaps there was a part of him that knew it...knew how I felt...knew that I was weak to him. I can’t think of any other reason that he’d stick around because I treated him so poorly at times. And, despite my perhaps lackadaisical impression that I landed in New Orleans smooth as you please...it was a chore to get any sort of peace for any stretch of time. I had to talk to people who would look after things while I was away, had to make sure that all my affairs were squared up and done with and let me tell you that that is no easy task. I’d made a name for myself, and to walk away from that name was not a tiny, winsome thing.’ 

'Affection is not a novelty either.'

'When I say 'affection' I do not mean merely touch; because I touch everything and everyone and I have touched Louis in ways that were not very nice in the past. No, I mean consideration, really... consideration and warmth. We had such moments, fleeting as they were. When I first made him there was a deep, abiding _need_ in him for my affection, and I rejected him. He needed my guidance and I did not know how to provide him that. I think, in some ways, that I didn't want him to need me like I had felt I needed Magnus. And you don't-can't, really-understand that need. It's such a compulsion, because I did love my Maker. I thought he was the most beautiful creature wrought before me. When I was made and I looked at him, I wanted to weep, and he abandoned me. Louis...I didn't want Louis to want me that way, in a manner that was almost compulsory lovesickness. And it was there...for a little while, a pure, bright glowing thing that I twisted and warped and bent to my will until he was both terrified, fascinated, and disgusted by me.' 

'And so affection in those days came with a fine, knife-like edge that tempered as the centuries passed. When we first came back to our city, it was slow to take shape. We hadn't had the time, really, in our travels. Hadn't had time to know each other, so when we came here we had to relearn it, had to figure out a way to make it different than before. I couldn’t tell you when that affection become something that ran parallel with physical closeness. Only that eventually it did, and it was a smooth transition...one so natural that I didn’t acknowledge it until weeks later. I didn’t notice it until Louis was curled into the crook of my arm...sometime past midnight perhaps two months after we came to New Orleans.’

‘He was asleep in the mortal manner that he sometimes falls into...I never really understood it. Napping, I mean; because we fall into this involuntary...crash-down unconsciousness during the day and why in the world would any vampire want to face that any longer than absolutely necessary? I slept-at one point-so long that I very nearly missed my fledgling’s decision to off himself without my permission. _Louis_ naps often, and it’s very strange and perhaps I shall tell you a story about that at another time. Then, however, he was sleeping in that soft...pliant, humanistic way...his lashes fluttering as he breathed into my side and that was when the realization came to me of our closeness. I remember that I’d moved somewhat in my ponderings and it made him stir and mutter and bury himself closer...his fingers coming up to hook under my elbow and grip my bicep and I was so overcome with it I nearly wept. Such a little thing...you might say, to be emotionally compromised by a snuggling, sleepy fledgling...but you don’t know…_mon dieu_, you just don’t know. I am-and I have said this before-an old man-though I will never tell you so should we run into each other-and in old age you look at the little things...you think of the little things and it _was_ a little thing but the truth of it was colossal. That is all I can truly say about it.’ 

‘I don’t ever do us justice with my words.’ 

‘I never have, and sometimes it drives me crazy. Because there aren’t enough words to describe my love for Louis, of who he is and what makes him who he is. I could tell you silly, _laissez faire_ things about him that make me quicken to his presence; the way he’ll stand a certain way, with his weight on one leg when he decides to read a book by a bookshelf. I love that; I love the outline of his physicality, the grace of it...the way his clothes hug his form...the manner of his posture. I love how the firelight catches the sharp contours of his visage...the way it plays over his mouth and makes haughty shadows of the vermillion of his lips. And of course you have his personality...his quiet poise...his patrician demeanor that hides the soul of a poet. I have told him, frenetically, over and over again of how I love such things and he looks at me like I’ve gone ‘round the bend and maybe I have. Maybe we both have. I never do it right in the moment; because I want to get it out and it explodes everywhere in an ungraceful, exorbitant manner that draws the attention of everyone and everything when the only thing I’ve ever wanted is standing two feet away with his eyebrows up to his hair and a _’what have you done’_ expression.’

‘It’s not a simple emotion.’ 

‘Nothing ever is in this world...my world. I’ve gone on and on about forever and the concept of forever when in truth there are so precious few constants that forever seems minutes-long because change always lurks ‘round another corner. And maybe it’s the vampiric perception of time...the outlook in question of the perfidy of permanence. _Alors là!_ Listen to me, I think if Louis were here he’d be rightly swooning. He’s gone off tonight, I don’t know where but he’ll be back before sunrise as he always is and I must get my melancholy ramblings under control or I don’t think we’ll leave the bed for a week. Not that I’d mind it, but he minds it...that loss of control...and yes, we will get to that here...but not now. I’ve frozen us, I fear...in a moment in time that I once more grapple to annotate with acceptable precision. I would beg your forgiveness for my tendency to backpedal, to coil about...but I must, you see...in order for you to fully comprehend the depth of what I’m saying. Because these moments are not wrought in their singularity; they are moments of their own...yet wrought from a thousand moments of moments before. I cannot, in good conscience, shed light on one without shedding light on that which is connective.’ 

‘Louis kissed me.’ 

‘He kissed me, and I was up against the wall...backed into a corner. And it was like so many other kisses...but it wasn’t. It wasn’t because it was open-mouthed and full and I could taste him. I was awash with him...overstrung as I was...overcome as I was...his piquancy was a prevalent thing over my tongue. I lifted my hands, if I recall correctly-I think I meant to push him away-and he caught my wrists. Those large, slim-fingered hands wrapped around them, thumbs stroking over my ulnar arteries and it was an intimacy I was unfamiliar with. It sent a shock through me, I know I shuddered with it-jolted really-a full body, reactive response that didn’t make any sense at all. I was angry with him...so angry; it was displaced anger, something residual from the previous argument and a defensive...corybantic manner of indignancy. Because while I let Louis touch me without express permission...this was different, it was visceral...personal. I tried to say something into it, tried to force words past my lips but they were bound and determined not to behave for me. I wanted to hit him, wanted to pull his hair or kick his shins-anything to break the moment, anything to keep from descending further into this.’ 

‘I was afraid of it, you see.’ 

‘The excuse, in all of its honesty-because it is honest-must seem infantile, but it is the truth. It’s a rather naked truth, really...one that I hesitate to put down here. I had always been afraid of what this was...of where it would lead us because so much of what we had pursued had culminated in destruction. I did not want to be impulsive with Louis because I was fearful for him, I didn’t want to hurt him anymore...even if I was hurting us by denying us this when we both wanted it. But I was kissing him back already; even as such thoughts careened through the distant expanse of my psyche I was kissing him back. My mouth was moving outside of my volition and some utterance passed between us, some issue of breath and body and _want_ and he’d angled us slightly so that I could feel the thick crush of my hair tickling my ears…’till my hands were loose and lax in his grasp and the gesture of it was deepening...becoming something reciprocative and heavy and all-encompassing and I could feel it all the way down to my toes which seems like something a randy teenager would say but was a present thing nonetheless.’ 

‘Mesmerizing.’ 

‘It’s not the same. I’ve said this before, but I want to say it again and likely will until I’m blue in the face. It’s not the same, with vampires...localized pleasure doesn’t exist. When we kissed I could feel him everywhere. Even if it was just a kiss I could feel it with the entirety of my physical body. I am not being slapstick when I say that being a vampire is rather like being one large, vibrating nerve. A tuning fork...that’s a better anecdote I believe. We’re rather like large, bloodthirsty tuning forks. Strike once and the tremor goes on...and on and on. I don’t wish to make it seem as if we can’t differentiate between pain and pleasure, we can. It’s very different. And of course you have the Thirst which, when very bad, feels rather like having an extreme allergic reaction...but touch...the sensation of touch is different. I think if I had touched Louis like that when he was first made, or really-if we want the scales to be equanimous-if Magnus had touched me in such a way when I was made...it would have been something completely overwhelming. It would have been painful because the sensationalization of becoming a vampire...the fascination with it all can last years. Maybe that’s why such pleasures are kept under lock and key...or why we aren’t told such things, because if I had been aware of my ability to do that...to give pleasure when Louis was but a fledgling-truly a fledgling, not simply the terminology of it-I’d have held him in such thrall I think I’d have had complete and utter dominance over him. And I would have used that to my advantage, most certainly. I was not above such things during that time, and I think I’m glad that I didn’t know of it.’ 

‘Now, however, Louis held me in thrall.’ 

‘I had always known that my fledgling carried his passions in his pocket. Much like one might carry a tornado in a teacup, really, if I can be forgiven for using such a whimsical anecdote. His upbringing dictated that he heft such things with aristocratic care, pinky out and all that rubbish...oh, but I knew him. I’d seen him over the course of those nights when he had his humanity...seen the glittering, ephemeral monster that hid behind the shell of a man. Because Louis, and he will never tell you this, Louis loves the kill. Louis loves the kill more than I do, possibly, which if you know me at all is saying quite a lot. And I never figured that out...not for several hundred years anyway...I never understood that his ramrod stiff reticence in regards to all things loose came from a terrible need for self control. And he does need it, Louis needs order, he needs all things to have a place and for them to be put in their place properly. Discipline is simply how he lives...and I abhorred him for it initially.’ 

‘It was hard to abhor him at the current moment.’

‘A pretty turn of the tables, if you really want to think of it. Don’t mistake me, my love has always dangled me by my heartstrings, but I have always been able to make him bend when it truly mattered. Not this time though...this time was different. This time he’d let one of my wrists go, had drawn it up over his shoulder so that he could thread through my hair...so he could cup the back of my head and deepen the kiss further. My fingers clutched uselessly at thin air; I think I groaned-or maybe he did, I couldn’t really tell you-I said his name and he answered with his tongue. Cool but not, alive but not; the gesture was as much a supplication as it was an invasion and I met it with my own advance. Louis shuddered and then began to kiss me as I’d seen him kissing the whore down by the wharf...the night before we met face to face...before I offered him the Dark Gift. Not as if I was something cheaply bought, mind you, but something wrought in mindless passion and a kind of dark debauchery and I _thrilled_ to it.’ 

‘At once, I understood the allure of my Louis as I’d never before.’ 

‘I loved him for it, I think, for that wild, unfettered abandon that he displayed for me in those initial moments. It told me, you see, that he wanted me rather desperately and if he’d known how smug I was turning inside I’m quite sure he would have given it all up. It told me that I drove him just as mad as he drove me. I think only a crazy person would find comfort in that...but I am, at the risk of painful reiteration, quite crazy...and so I did find solace in such a truth. I don’t know what kind of picture we made...if you truly want the third party perspective of it. Dark...tall shadowed things of tepid centuries pressed against the dark of a house younger than we were but older than the good majority of those in the city. Clouded, ephemeral phantoms twisting in an alcove that at once seemed too large and too small. The rustle of cloth...the exchange of no longer-needed breath. I’m reminded of the hooktip moth...of a thing of dip-down winged curvatures not unlike fangs...blackened at the tips and beating furiously against the raging blaze of a headlamp. So we were...two creatures imperiled by the sun but forever drawn to the conflagration of one another; flapping about the luminescence of that which was and has ever been within us.’ 

‘At some point, my own control left me.’

‘I think that’s putting it rather mildly because my control left me and fled howling into the night on a carriage of lust. And it wasn’t when Louis slipped his fingers into my shirt, _non_, though he did that and I felt a rather rabid urge to reciprocate. I’d caught his lower lip you see...with my teeth-though not with fangs-and I was worrying the plump fullness of it...the tang of that which sustained us throbbing beneath the surface of achingly thin flesh...his fingers touched my naked side and I couldn’t really do anything but rutch up his sweater and plaster my free hand all over his torso and the feel of his skin was so glorious I forgot to kiss him and I think maybe he was rather put off by that because he nipped me. Or maybe he was so distracted that he ended up giving me a love bite purely by accident. Our nature is thus, you see, and always there and when he did that I think I ended up doing something with his tongue. Nothing fancy or brilliant; just something reflexive and pointy but not deep or harsh and the copper of him exploded on my taste buds and I think the world might have combusted before me and I wouldn’t have given a damn.’ 

‘It had been over two hundred years since I tasted Louis.’ 

‘Shocking...really...that I’d gone so long despite how much his blood called to me in the first place. And it did call to me, like the song of a siren when I saw him...rich, scarlet, thick and fine despite all the alcohol in his system that night. It’s a miracle I’d forgotten what he tasted like because the minute that fine...flute like issue of hemoglobin touched me I felt almost mad with it. Like a pointsettia unfolding...brilliant and carmine in a dark room...like the musky, erotic flowering of a rose...the velvet of each dusky petal and I snarled into his mouth. My jaw tightened as I scented him...instincts taking over as sanguine thirst flooded my synapses...drenched the myelin in something shivering, olgeanous and dripping a sheer, clarion wasteland of wanton promise. I sought it desperately...drove my tongue deep and let it wander in the thick of his mouth and I think something about it must have given him pause because he stiffened but I was having none of it at that point. I gave as good as I got; found the delicate, acuminate arc of his fangs and let myself over one...spilled myself into his mouth and the sound that left him was animal in its ferocity. It was elatory and dark and so utterly unlike him but more of him than I’d ever had.’ 

‘Lost...we were lost.’ 

‘Shipwrecked, really, upon the expanse of a desire that spanned more years than a human can possibly comprehend. A sea of oblivion was knocking on our doorstep; a black well of indiscriminate surplus rising to warm the froth that was our interchange. His fingers at my side were so tight they would have broken the skin if I’d not been as hardy and I’d arched into him...my spine a tight bow before lust gave somewhat and became more of the need to have him...to have all of him...to drink him to the dregs and I think I pushed him. I know he stumbled backwards and those green eyes were riotous in their distraction as he went with the movement purely due to lack of inhibition. We hit the opposite wall and the plaster beneath the wallpaper cracked with a dull distractible thud. I could smell him; so close so hungry and he’d bared his neck to me and it was such a beautiful gesture...so complete a surrender that it suddenly felt that I was in a state of fugue...that surely this was some type of dream. My hands came about his waist then as I descended upon him...as an issuance of breath left his lips and became a low, needy sound out of his mouth and mine was on his neck...my tongue licking a fat, wide stripe up the ripe protuberance of his jugular...priming him with all the mastery my lust-sodden mind could offer.’ 

‘_”Wait-!”_’

‘In times gone past...I’d not have listened to him then...I simply wouldn’t have. Either that or I’d have heeded and then done him something squarely painful for slighting me so because there is nothing more insulting than that. I don’t particularly know how to describe it, but it’s much like someone offering you something more valuable than jewels, more valuable than a soul or love or life itself only to dither at the very last possible moment. My fangs were pricking at epidermis when he blurted it out...digging softy into his too-ready flesh as my mind began to fall into the haze that heralds the swoon. I was halfway into it, really, just from having him under my mouth...from the knowledge of what I was about to receive. I was trembling with need for him...could barely breathe with it-not that I needed it but you know what I mean-and he just had to be the sorry one...had to be the one that called for halt when all that was on my mind was _finally...finally_. I think I jerked...I think I nearly hit him again just for saying such a pitiful...negligent thing. I didn’t, however, and maybe it was good that I didn’t because his hand came up then even as he ducked his head...as he drew such promise away from me in a manner so apologetic and polite that I very nearly screamed.'

'Slowly, vaguely, I became aware that he was shuddering too. That those green eyes were half-crazed with desire and apprehension, his hair askew and his lips so kiss-reddened they were fair blushing at me.There was a throbbing in my groin, one distantly familiar but not familiar enough that it surpassed the bloodlust. I think that gave me pause enough not to say something completely cruel, though what I went with really wasn't kind either. It was enough for me to reign in my tyranny, even for a moment, but it was still callous. I stared at him, at the wreck of him and was aware that I was likely no better, chest heaving, my fingers spider-like in their tenseness on the wall behind me. I raised a sardonic brow.'

'"Louis" I quipped snidely. "Louis don't be a cocktease.'

'He looked squarely offended.'

'Really, I was surprised he didn't shriek like a maid and gather his ‘skirts’ up about him in horror and run off to the loo or something to that effect, you get my meaning. In retrospect I had him rather pinned-which, really, was only fair because he’d done the same to me-and he suddenly looked painfully at odds with everything. But he had _started it_ and now he was indisposed to finish it and it made me angry for reasons that had nothing to do with the beginning of the whole affair. And-granted-during an argument was not the most ideal time to do something like this, but I hadn’t done it, he had. And now he was being a filthy hypocrite about it, or he’d gotten his knickers in a twist about it, and I didn’t like it because it meant he was thinking far too hard about it. Ever the logician, however, Louis didn’t allow himself to descend to my depth of irritation. Instead, he licked his lips and opened his mouth, his eyes darting away and then down to my fly and then back up again and I wanted to shake him a little but he’d brought my-frankly-large tenting problem to my attention and that was a little bit shocking but I didn’t have the wherewithal or the patience to think on it at the moment. And he wasn’t in any better a state really, physically I mean. His pants were looser than mine and the gloriousness of him was rather apparent and now he was blushing and it was adorable and infuriating.’ 

‘“Lestat” my Louis said, and his voice was thick. “L’stat-” he scowled and cleared his throat. “Do you know what you’re about?”’

‘I frowned because what a stupid question to ask, but what a valid question to ask. _’Of course’_ I wanted to answer. _’We’re fucking, don’t you know how to fuck?’_ That is what I wanted to say, but I didn’t say it because I think it would have offended him straight out the front door. I think it would have offended him out of Louisiana and possibly off the continent because that is how terribly offended Louis is capable of getting and I actually did not want him to go away. I wanted to kiss him some more and I wanted to get his clothes off of him and do terrible, wonderful things to him now that I knew it was an opportunity but he wouldn’t settle for that. No, he would need to know the answers, but I didn’t have those answers. I didn’t think anyone had those answers because, as far as I knew, we were one of the longest-standing-living, of course-vampire-vampire relationships within the last several hundred years.

“‘Nobody knows what we’re about” I said crossly. “Does it matter?”’

‘He knew I was telling the truth.’ 

‘Louis knew it, I could see it in his eyes...we’re far past the point where he can discern my tells when it comes to lying and I am very good at lying. It didn’t seem to comfort him, however and I understood it but I didn’t _want_ to.’

‘“Of course it matters’ he replied just as crankily. “What if we hurt each other?” Those beautiful features spasmed for a moment. “What if I-” he broke off. “What if I _kill_ you, Lestat?” I scoffed and the moment I did it I knew I’d hurt him. “Just-take _something_ seriously” he spat, humiliation and confusion making him rough around the edges. “We don’t...the bloodlust.” Green eyes disappeared behind onyx-wreathed lids. “It’s not as it should be” he murmured. “Not now. When I...tasted you.” A shudder and he was doing _nothing_ to diffuse the moment. “It was as if I was made again, just then. My Thirst for you is animal, Lestat” Louis said this flatly, as if he was telling me our goldfish-and we did not have a goldfish-had died and he’d flushed it. “I don’t like it.”’

‘“_I don’t like it”_ I mimicked and he recoiled as if I’d struck him. Contrite, I tried to soften my tone. “Listen to yourself, _chéri_-”’

‘“-No _you_ listen to yourself!” he cut in, and he was truly angry now. “And don’t-don’t use that word-” I raised an eyebrow in question of _what word_ and his bearance was much akin to a volcano. “-_That_ word! Don’t use those endearments with me when you’re belittling me. We don’t know anything about this, no one we know knows anything about this. Our kind, we can’t-”’

‘“-Apparently we can” I interrupted dryly. “And I wasn’t belittling you.” He screwed up his face in a manner most unbecoming and I relented. “I was” I huffed. “But I want you, don’t you see?”’

‘Louis was looking at me as if I’d lost perhaps my entire brain.’ 

‘“I think you’re demented” he deadpanned.’

‘“I think you’re a prude” I snapped.’ 

‘I knew we were edging off the map.’

‘When I say that, I mean we were circling ‘round to where we started, and neither of us were better for it. I don’t think either of us wanted to, but we’re so alike with such things...we don’t know when to stop. He was angry, I was angry and it was all spilling out in a manner that was really not so pretty combined with the events of the last few minutes. And I...I was too hurt, too rejected and too confused to take back anything that I was saying. I felt like I’d faced this with him a thousand times before; this pushback...this egress and I couldn’t conscience it. So he surprised me when he cupped my cheeks, when he drew me in and bumped our foreheads together...like he hadn’t just called me mad and I hadn’t just told him he was old fashioned and stuffy.’ 

‘“I want this” he admitted to my nose. “But I don’t know...I don’t know how to do this quickly, Lestat. You need to be patient with me, and I am sorry for it.”’ 

‘Damn him.’ 

‘Damn him to Hell because when he said that I couldn’t possibly be angry with him anymore. It was such a lovely, soft and Louis thing to say...so polite and gentle as you please. All the bearing of a Southern gentleman in his voice and his posture and despite the fact that I’d hated him ten seconds beforehand I was head over heels for him when he opened his mouth and said that because I am incurably soft to Louis and for him to surrender was such a rare thing...nowadays anyway. He’d learned...you see, to stand up to me. But I think that in that moment he understood where my vulnerability was coming from, and he knew how long I had loved him, and how desperately and hopefully and so he ceded it to me because he loved me just as well. And I wanted to be cross and rude and belligerent with him but I couldn’t because he was saying _’yes’_, even if he wasn’t saying _’yes’_ and tearing his clothes off. And so it was with this in mind that I covered his hands with my own and brought my right and his left down...down and up so I could kiss his palm...so I could press my lips to his fate line and breath him in.’ 

‘“So we do nothing now” I muttered into the soft clutch of his fingers.’

‘“I didn’t say that.”’ I looked at him when he spoke, and there was that edge of thickness again...like water drops clinging to his lashes when we were out and it rained. He must have read my surprise because he chuckled quietly...not really a laugh, more of an amused exhale. “Lestat” he sighed. “You don’t listen to me.” Dark brows drew together in an expression of gentle incredulity. “I don’t know why I expect you to, it shouldn’t surprise me at all, but you don’t.”’ 

_’”Je ne comprends pas”_ I replied, feeling a touch whiny. Still...his expression remained tender, patient.’

‘“I know you don’t” was the murmured reply into my curls. “I know...I have known, _mon cœur_.” His right hand left my cheek to tilt my chin back up...to bid me straighten from his palm so he could look at me. “Kiss me” he said quietly, and if his voice was unsteady neither of us commented on it. “But do it slow, and do it because you love me, and not because you must do it so you don’t have something cruel to say.”’ 

‘And oh, I could have taken him up on that.’ 

‘The _’cruel to say’_ part...the whole part...because he’d started it. Even if he was trying to end it, he had begun it, and it was a mild hypocrisy, but I knew what he was trying to say to me. Louis was giving, he was giving and wanting because he did not know what else to do, and he didn’t want to hold this between us, didn’t want to focus on the ugliness behind it. And I think we both knew that the answer was there...not in electronics, not in the television or in his books, but in each other. All the darkness...all the night in the world and there was naught but us...for years and years. And what was the point in arguing it? In saying that he could be just as cruel, that he was just as callous? Nothing. Nothing at all. It wouldn’t fix anything; I didn’t know if _kissing_ him would fix anything. But it’s a rare thing...you see, for my Louis. His upbringing didn’t allow for him to consider such relationships between men, and even when he understood-regrettably, long after I made him-what the nature of my choice of him indicated of me, he was slow to accept it. So when he asked me...when he _asked_ me...I couldn’t do anything but what I was bidden, because there was nothing to say.’ 

‘Not a damn thing.’ 

‘I think I gathered him close...I think I took him up on that offer until I was drowning in him...in his mouth. It was different from our previous exchange; there wasn’t that edge behind it...that frenetic sense of desperation. The hunger was ever-present, of course, but it felt more controlled...less impulsive. He’s just a little bit shorter than me...my Louis...by a scant few inches...two might be generous, even. But enough that when we kiss the tilt of it isn’t flatline...it’s something that goes together...like the interlocking pieces of a puzzle. He fits me perfectly, immaculately...like he was made for me even before I made him. I know he cupped my elbow then...that he took it in his hand even as his breath hitched. And it shouldn’t have affected me so...that little hiccup of respiration, something tremulous in the back of the throat, but it did. There was emotion there...and I have always wanted that from Louis...reaction. Petty, it might seem...but it’s difficult for me to otherwise read him. He was-so I realized-more open in his physicality than he was with his verbosity. I needed that from him...far more desperately than I can possibly put into words.’ 

‘Clumsy.’

‘It might seem impossible, that a vampire could be clumsy; and perhaps to a mortal we wouldn’t be...but we were then. My hands were just a bit awkward on him...for I had never taken things slowly in that area before. He, in turn, was a bit fumbling with his touch...because I was a man and he had not had a man. I knew this, even as he kissed me with all the wanton of the enraptured...I knew, for he touched me in places and seemed uncertain with all the hard lines before him. Not disgusted, or neutral, you must understand...more curious, more searching. Never was there a time where I did not grieve the Veil between us more, for I would have had his mind then...I wanted it like I wanted nothing else. I wanted to know his pleasure in every way, wanted to know what felt good to him and what didn’t. In the end, I don’t know who did it...I don’t know who moved first or if perhaps we moved together, but our hips canted forward...rubbed against each other and all of his virile, male hardness was digging into me...rutting into me and I think I said something appalling, I don’t know what, only that Louis wasn’t paying much attention either.’ 

‘Not as strong.’ 

‘As the bloodlust...to be clear, it was still pleasurable, however. I think I was more gobsmacked regarding the fact that I could get it up at all than anything. But if anyone was going to help me achieve such a thing it was going to be Louis, because I am _very_ attracted to Louis in ways that go far beyond the aesthetic. Louis, however, was too distracted with it all to really consider the implications of our suddenly very human arousal. And it’s a muddle of things, or so I believe, but I have not the time nor the space to tell you in this particular tale. Needless to say, we were both very recently fed; full of blood at the time yet still thirsting for one another and making out in a hallway after some two hundred years of avoiding doing anything of the sort. I think at this point I should mention that Louis’s comment regarding _’go slow’_ or whatever trifle was fast becoming null and void. And I don’t really know if he meant ‘go slow’ with sex, or ‘go slow’ with drinking blood. I think we reached a happy medium; I certainly can’t complain about it.’ 

‘Louis upped the ante with the kissing rather considerably at some point. Meaning that he kissed me quite hard and my self control fell all to pieces and suddenly the element of frottage was very intense; up against a wall with our clothes in disarray as we fumbled with each other’s hemlines. I got my palm flat against the lower part of his abdomen and he made a wild, desperate noise that had me gripping his hair harder than I meant to but he really didn’t seem to care at that point; it was all going to Hell quite spectacularly. My blood was seething in me like something displaced...something that needed _out_ and into something else and it was taking every iota of my willpower not to give in to that urge. It wasn’t particularly about biting anymore, it was about having and being had...and I didn’t understand it really. I was fumbling with the catch to his slacks and trying simultaneously not to fillet my tongue on his fangs because the idea of it was that damn glorious...that much of a compulsion. Louis’s self control is by far more stalwart than mine but there were several times when I would feel the press of a sharp point against my lip...that stretch before the initial bite and it was everything I could do not to egg him on. The only thing I could do was distract, and if distract meant that I got my hands into his pants then so be it.’ 

‘When I did that, Louis collapsed to the floor.’ 

‘In actuality, he slid down the wall and I followed him; knelt between his drawn-up knees and propped-up torso even as he yanked me back to him by the hair and kissed me in a manner just bordering on fierce. A tangle of limbs and I was practically sprawled over his lap-I wasn’t, but you get my meaning-and I’d gotten my hand on him and he was hard-soft, cool but warm, jerking in my palm and I think I saw red; or maybe white, I haven’t the faintest clue. We were never going to make it to the bedroom; the minute he kissed me we were never going to make it to the bedroom and I couldn’t bring myself to regret it. It wasn’t graceful at all, really; it was rather like falling down the stairs.'

'I'd forgotten that you couldn't do such a thing dry so when Louis yelped at a particularly enthusiastic tug I was mortified with my own lack of foresight and spent a good twenty minutes garbling apologies between kisses. Maybe he said something in return, I believe he did, something between a crooning, growling noise that was certainly not human but had me gasping into his mouth all the same, had me clutching at him. It was a reciprocative thing...of course. Because the need for touch was covetous...grasping, almost mindless. If we weren’t kissing he was rubbing up against me...rising to his knees to meet me as he buried his face in my shoulder and moaned long and low while I retrieved my properly slicked hand to stroke along the length of him. Heavy on my fingers; thick and long and it was making my head swim just having him there. I think I could have spent myself simply by pleasuring him...it was certainly enough even if it would have been humiliating.’ 

‘Hesitance.’ 

‘I do recall hesitance...Louis’s hesitancy. Not because he didn’t desire me, but because he was unaccustomed to the forwardness. And-of course-woebegone with lust. He palmed the swell of my pleasure through the increasingly uncomfortable confines of my slacks and his fingers were tremulous both with desire and shyness. I pushed into the touch even as the bloodlust within me rose to what felt like boiling proportions. I was rather afraid that if we didn’t stop I would end up biting him because the need was so strong when he touched me I nearly threw him to the floor and ripped into him there and then. But those nimble, bookish fingers were prying away the cloth betwixt them and the ache there-a little ache, compared to the one in my throat-he touched me...the whole of me carefully...reverently...I could feel him...feel every dip of epidermis...feel his life line as he grasped at me...as his palm took the heft of me to him and I think I shuddered so hard it was a teeth-rattling thing. It wasn’t even the act of it, it was the knowledge of who it was that was doing it, the knowledge of being so loved and so cherished.’ 

‘He kissed me while he did this...while he accustomed himself to me, Louis took my mouth and made it a deep, heady thing and I swayed with it. My own hand faltered enough that he was forced to rock into my grip to find his own friction. On anyone else, it would have been a lewd thing to do, a frantic thing. With my Louis, it was a thing that made me love him more for it; he desired me to such a degree he was seeking his pleasure openly and honestly. Left hand to right hand...crossed over and over and I found a rhythm again...something slow and languorous...slick and wet and I didn’t know if we could finish like this...it certainly felt like we could. I licked into his mouth and it was no longer a cold...distant thing but a searing fire over my tongue and the body before me was tight as a 74 gauge string...something more than physical lust in those green eyes even as my fledgling drew back and lifted his free arm…’

‘Louis offered his wrist.’ 

‘I think the whole of the universe was plunged into sudden darkness when he did that. It was rather like a lunar eclipse; all my focus in the world was upon the gesture...on the simplicity of it...on the natural grace of it. It was so beautiful, so pretty and I could hear the blood rushing through him, feel his pulse pressing in on my eardrums until it was a roar and I think I whimpered. I made a sound like a mouse abruptly stepped on, so great was my need and his was no less. Louis’s fangs were a visible thing...not bared, just barely-there...under the curvature of his upper lip. He was fair slavering for it and something in me whispered that perhaps this was not such a good idea. I swallowed and it hurt.’ 

_’”Do it”_’.

‘Such a harsh phrase...a harsh supplication. He was back against the wall again...his hair had fallen so that I could barely see his face but I could see his wrist. Veritably, it was _all_ I could see. And he was kissing me...kissing me in that supplicative...gentle manner so like him. But he’d never kissed me so before; repeatedly...like he could draw my acquiescence with his tenderness and I think that perhaps I was a little offended by that. However, I was not so far gone not to recognize that such machinations were wrought from his own great yearning. Truthfully, I’m not sure if I’d not have done the same. It was of him...that’s the only way I can describe it. I recognized it because it was _of Louis_. Really, it must seem like the most bizarre scene in existence; two men sprawled in a hallway beating each other off despite not knowing if orgasm was even possible. I know I thought it terribly strange even in the midst of it. Regardless, it was hard to think on the intricacies of it when it was so near.’

‘We likely should have had more care.’ 

‘I say this because I offered him my wrist in turn...and in doing so...I gave up the ghost. I knew that Louis was initially reticent, and I knew that neither of us were thinking straight. He hadn’t asked me, however, to hold back...perhaps he assumed that he’d manage it...I don’t know. If he did, he was rather exorbitantly incorrect. He was so catastrophically incorrect that it was nearly humorous but of course that is all assumption and speculation and I shan’t make an unreliable narrator of myself because I wish to harangue my love. Here is where I would take you on another careening monologue regarding when Louis drank of me initially...of what he said to me of it afterwards...but I won’t do that either. No...I’ll simply tell you that my dark-haired, soulful fledgling bent his head over my wrist and it was a swaying gesticulation...like a bird of prey sighting its meal and plunging downwards for the capture. He let his tongue trace the veins there covetously, distractingly...before sucking in a purely instinctual...purely preparatory manner….’

‘And then Louis sank in his fangs.’ 

‘Invasion...that first, hungry inward thrust and the wet utterance of breaking flesh. I knew it...oh I knew it. I knew the ecstasy of twin daggers piercing me of my own volition, for he had done it once before and despite the fact that I was half-dead and barely woken the pleasure of it was-even then-undeniable. There, then, for no reason other than gratification... something about it took that gesture to an entirely different plane of indulgence. I felt it...and I didn’t...I was elsewhere, into the ether of it. I do know that I took his wrist in turn; that his body jerked when I did so and that when I tasted him it was a thing transported. Temperate...exquisite, saliferous and russet. Everyone, every single individual has their own unique sanguine signature; I would be lying to you if I told you otherwise. I would also be lying if I informed you that I am educated regarding the reasoning behind it; it is speculated that it has something to do with deoxyribonucleic acid and leukocytes. Louis speculates this, of course, with Marius; I very much don’t care. But my fledgling’s signature is writ in the velvet starlight of his soul; a quivering, melted astral coalescence that sings through his veins...sings to me...for me. I knew immediately-on the first...long pull-that this was what had been missing for us. It was, at once, both soothing and inflaming. I was swooning, he was swooning and circumvolution of our blood was melody and memory.’

‘The physical aspect of it hardly mattered anymore, though it was still there. But it was not-and has never been-as beautiful as the combination of us. I think I should be disconcerted to admit that we left it behind, but that is a human insecurity, and we are anything but...and so I am not...not at all. I was still touching Louis, but I’d abandoned the narrow focal of reproductive gratification and so had he. Instead I drew him up again-urged him really-to his knees so he could echo my posture, our heads still bent over the ulnar arteries; Louis to my left and I to his right. I cupped the back of his head and he echoed my movement...pressed close and shuddered and shuddered. It wasn’t particularly messy, but it wasn’t clean either; there was scarlet pooling in our palms and if one of us chased it every so often-waste not want not, _oui?_-only to have it spill down the knuckles in carmine rivulets before we reseated ourselves...it didn’t matter at all. I wanted to see him ruined though, covered in it all, in a purely ruthless way. There was something primal about that mental picture, the picture of Louis slathered with the combination of us; sticky and coming down with it on bone-white sheets; purity sacked...but not tonight.’ 

_’”Je t'adore…”’_

‘Shock...such a shock to hear him within it. I don’t think either of us were thinking in those initial moments, or perhaps we were so consumed by it we couldn’t acknowledge the connection of our mentalities through the blood. But when I heard him…_when I heard him_...there aren’t any words for such a thing. I’d apologize, but I cannot. It was, quite possibly, the greatest gift I have ever received, because I had not heard him since I’d so cruelly forced the Change upon him, so many nights ago...so many years ago. And his last thoughts...the last ones I’d heard had been melancholy, a little fearful, full of death and uncertainty. I knew he was inveigled by me, but I didn’t know what he truly felt for me...and so I lived with that last gasp of his existence; that morbid, helpless gasp and to have it replaced...to have it set aside by something that was warm and golden and affectionate... I think I choked...I know the pleasure morphed into something that was both pain and penance. Louis...oh Louis...he could hear me as well, I knew it because the grip at the back of my head had become something so fierce it nearly hurt me. Emotion, the transference of emotion...of things we could not say but could feel and I was drinking but now it was a distractible thing in comparison. His breathing was labored, and maybe I should have been concerned about that, but I could feel that he loved me; truly feel it. It was, abruptly, a certainty where before it had been something distant, something tenuous.’ 

_’”Sans toi, je ne suis rien.”’_

‘A sob.’ 

‘It was loud, something wrenched from the depths of a dark well and Louis had surfaced...surfaced enough to disengage and grasp me with both hands like a man starved for something. I had enough sense to do the same, to break from his wrist and look at him as he stared into my eyes with irises that were frantic, disbelieving. Red and red and red on his pretty mouth and I had never seen anything more beautiful, anything as enchanting. I must have looked a mess myself, I could still taste him on my tongue and the swoon was still halfway upon me but my Louis’s hysteria was enough that I was able to gather the withwheral to touch him, and when I did, when I put a careful hand at his hip he blinked furiously...blinked away what must have been tears even as his hold on me became so tenuous it was a little bit alarming. He bowed his head...his dark...onyx hair falling forward until the only thing I could see was that and his shoulders-which were shaking-as he cupped my elbows.’

‘“You do”’ he said, and it was so quiet, so quiet that a human would not have heard it. 

‘“I do what, _chéri_?” I whispered, breathing labored. 

‘It took him a while to answer. I think he was perhaps gathering himself together; and I did understand it. I was overwhelmed...too overwhelmed to really react to it at the time, and maybe it was a blessing because if I hadn’t been I think the mess of it would have been so great we wouldn’t have been able to manage it.’ 

‘“Love me’” he finally choked out. “You love me.”’

‘In any other circumstances, such a statement would have hurt me, deeply. _’Of course I love you, you idiot’_ I would have said. But it was different...the mental projection of such love. This is where the psychic limitations of fledgling and maker are both a blessing and a curse...because Louis was never sure and I was never sure. Oh, we wrote about it, but when you have the privilege of reading the thoughts of everyone else but the person to whom you’ve sworn your eternal existence, it becomes something abridged; and I don’t mean to make an ironic statement of that. Feeling it...in absolution, as a totality, was a thing all-encompassing. So I was not offended, and I was not upset, and I drew him to me until he would look at me and his face was crumpled in a manner I had not seen in some two hundred years. It was such a human, vulnerable expression...it was so relieved that it broke me a little bit. It broke my heart because he had always had it...my Louis...but he had never ever known it. He had never known himself to be of such value to me, until that very moment. And so I kissed his cheeks and he took a deep breath and settled...and we remained. We remained until the clock said that it was near to three and the blood was drying on our skin.’ 

‘Perhaps you were expecting it to go differently.’

‘In other times...it did...and it has. But that one experience, that one profound experience...without the major physicality of it, trumps the rest. It was our first time, our first time and our first true honesty. I think I had some sort of fit of the vapors regarding it afterwards, the next night, if my memory serves me correctly. Not necessarily in correlation with fainting, simply a fit; something borne from shock. And there were ramifications from it, of course. We had to learn to not go about it so hastily and so desperately. That was, to put it in a manner atrociously mild, extremely difficult because once we’d done it it was nearly impossible to surmise we wouldn’t do it again. Louis came off terribly offended by his lack of self control and I had to talk and wheedle and whine my way through that and it was all rather stupid and boring. It was all messy, sex is-of course-quite messy.’ 

‘“There’s a sale”’ Louis muttered against what remained of my shirtfront. We were still sprawled in the hallway that night, though we would need to move to bathe and change so that when we rose from the deathsleep we weren’t completely mortified. I blinked, or so I believe. At some point we’d both, by unspoken agreement, simply keeled to the carpet and remained there, clutching at each other. “At Walmart” my love continued in a manner most stately. “They’re selling the same television set you bought.” He shifted and nudged a leg between my thighs. “We could go, tomorrow night...if you wish it.”’

‘I wanted to ask him how he knew that. I peeked at him-because I am incorrigible-under the curtain of his hair and he tucked his nose into my shoulder and his ears turned red-as red as they could considering the blood loss-and I of course I laughed. He wasn’t offended, however. I think he was too happy to be offended even if the source of his happiness was complicated and required so much brickwork it would take us decades to figure it all out.’ 

‘“If this is all it takes to change your mind I think I shall do it more often” I sniggered.’

‘He kicked me, but there was no weight behind it.’ 

‘“We should talk…”

‘This was said uncertainly, with an air of reluctance, and I knew what he meant. We were both exhausted, drained-quite literally-and reeling with it all.’

‘“Tomorrow” I murmured. “Tomorrow and tomorrow.” I did move then, enough to prop myself up on one elbow and push his hair back from his face and take him in...all lax and sleepy and stained. I think he smiled, I think it was boyish and a bit rascally. “I do love you” I added, because I wanted to. “I do, and I have...Louis. You’re mine.” 

‘He laughed.’

“_D’accord_” he said fondly, and the youthfulness was replaced with his usual, studious pleasantry as he reached up to trace my lips. To another, I think the statement might seem out of context...but it was not, not in consideration of us. It was also, at once, a profound acquiescence. “And I love you as well.” 

‘I kissed him then, though it didn’t culminate into anything. I kissed him and he kissed me back and we went up to wash. We went out to replace the electronics the next night, and I made him call David-who was, at that point, nearly frantic-in order to reassure him of our livelihood. Maybe I will tell you of how we went about discussing it...discovering it...but once again, not now. Now, I can only tell you that it was precious...that it changed us, for the better, or so I’d like to think...and that was enough...it is enough. Louis and I...for all his faults, for all of mine...have always been enough for each other.’ 

‘And so we shall be, until the end.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Again, this may be edited periodically if I see something I don't like (grammatically). I've been over it numerous times but after a while my eyes start to go funny so I apologise if there are any inconsistencies, they will be corrected in time, but feel free to let me know if you see any, truly.

**Author's Note:**

> **Another A/N:** I want to note that some of the ruminations in this are very speculative, especially the concept of Louis and Lestat having so much trouble because they weren't willing to throw down somewhere and have it out. Again, I do struggle with keeping the voice intact, because it can be somewhat of a crazy headspace to put myself in. 
> 
> Edit: This will likely be periodically edited for grammar and things that irritate me. I don't have a beta so this is very much raw, if you will. 
> 
> **Thank you for reading!**


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